


The day of the Pachamama

by JKlog



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Aymaras, F/M, Pachamama, Peru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 04:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20058112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JKlog/pseuds/JKlog
Summary: The Aymaras celebrate the day of the Pachamama, and have a strange visitor from another world.





	The day of the Pachamama

The _yatiri_ was with her young disciples in her hut. She was a very respected old woman in the village. It was very early in the morning of a very important day, the first day of August. Pachamama ceremonies began, which would last throughout the month.

The entire village participated in the ceremonies, but the _yatiri _was in charge of preparing and directing them. She had to choose carefully the offerings to the Pachamama, otherwise she could be offended and that resulted in diseases and failed crops. That couldn’t happen.

Pachamama was Mother Earth. The Aymara believed in the reciprocity between man and nature. The natural balance should be preserved to ensure the survival of man.

At that time, that balance was being threatened. The white men came with their greed and their guns, sweeping away all the coca they could find. For the Aymara, coca was a sacred herb. It was within the offerings that were made to the Pachamama.

Leaving those thoughts aside, the _yatiri_ began explaining to her disciples how to choose coca leaves for the goddess.

Suddenly, a cloud of blue smoke formed in the center of the hut.

A man walked out of it. A white man with long curly hair. His blue eyes shone, despite the low light coming through the window, at that time in the morning. Maybe he was sent by the god Katari? Katari's eyes were like crystals.

The man seemed to be amazed and confused. He looked everywhere with wide eyes. After a few minutes, the blue-eyed young man seemed to calm down. He even gave the old woman a smile.

"It's just a dream," said the young man.

"For you, maybe it is, but not for me," said the old woman, "Are you an _Apu_ sent by Katari?"

“I know what you mean, I know what an _Apu_ is and I know who Katari is, but no, I am not. My name is Blair Sandburg. And I'm not really sure, but I think I'm a shaman.”

The _yatiri _knew why that man was there. He was an _Apu,_ although he didn't know it, that was going to fertilize the Pachamama. It was an event that happened once every one hundred years. It was time. An era of unprecedented prosperity was what would follow next. The old colla smiled and then covered her mouth, because she remembered that she had few teeth left. But she kept smiling behind her hand.

The man was beautiful, surely Pachamama would like him.

"We have to prepare you for the ceremony, Blair Sandburg."

The youngsters had long since fled in terror. The old woman stepped out of the hut and explained to the villagers that were gathered there what had happened. They burst into expressions of jubilation. Then the old woman went back into the hut and proceeded to prepare the young shaman for his encounter with the goddess.

…………………………………………… ..

The hut disappeared, and Blair Sandburg found himself in a clearing in the middle of the jungle of Peru.

Then, she appeared.

She was the most beautiful indigenous woman he had ever seen. She looked like a Nefertiti. She was sparsely covered by coca leaves. She advanced towards him with a smile on her perfect face.

Blair Sandburg made love to that woman, passionately, and knew what it meant. It was the birth of a new era. He would fertilize the Pachamama so that she would bear fruit to humans.

At the moment of ecstasy, Blair closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was in his bed, in his room in the loft. What had all that been? Just a dream?

He looked at the digital clock on his nightstand. 8:05 am, August 1st.

The day of the Pachamama.

**Author's Note:**

> The Apu is the male counterpart to the Pachamama. There are several of them.  
Katari is the name of an Aymara deity represented as a winged snake, with crystalline eyes, reddish snout, flame head, and a fish tail.  
I made up the idea of the fertilization of the Pachamama every hundred years and the prosperity that follows, it's not part of the Aymara religion. I just took some poetic liberty.


End file.
